THE TRANSFORMATION OF A GENRE.
LASCA'S BURLESQUE STYLE WITHIN THE ACADEMIC WORLD
OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE

        PhD project by Inge Werner (Utrecht University)
        Supervisor: professor Harald Hendrix

Werner investigates the position of Antonfrancesco Grazzini, detto il Lasca, in the Florentine academy at different stages of his career as a poet, novelliere and playwright. The instability of Lasca's position is affected by the enmities and friendships in his academic relationships, several of which hitherto remain underexposed. The project aims to add to our knowledge of Lasca's contacts and their meaning in the academic environment. The second aim of this research will be to explore the functioning of Lasca's writings, especially nello stile burlesco, based on the hypothesis that he applied the burlesque style as a medium to create a distinct profile for himself: both as a man of letters in the margins of the academy, and, later in his career, as a conformist participant. Accordingly, Lasca's burlesque poetry - for example the comic-heroic epic La Guerra de' Mostri (1548) and various correspondence-poems he wrote to his colleagues - will be pivotal to this project, but contemporary academic sources will be used as well. Lasca's burlesque poetry will be approached in an interdisciplinary manner, firstly as a source for historical evidence of his social circumstances, and secondly from a literary point of view to explore its function and development as a satirical genre.